Web.Preneuring

How local TV ads & online marketing can help you win big!

SPOT RUNNER AT A GLANCE

Headquartered in Los Angeles, Spot Runner is the first Internet-based ad agency that makes it easy and affordable for local businesses to advertise on TV. Advertisers can choose from a comprehensive library of professionally produced ads which can be viewed, purchased and personalized in a simple process online. With its proprietary media planning engine, Spot Runner also creates customized media plans by using some basic information entered by the advertiser, such as their industry, target demographics and budget. The entire process, which can traditionally take months and hundreds of thousands of dollars, now takes just days and at a fraction of the cost. It is a great technique to grow your biz.

Spot Runner manages each account by securing the ad buy, placing and tracking the ads, and analyzing viewership and demographic information. All of it is available online—a simple mouse click away. It's quick and easy.

Spot Runner sets itself apart from traditional advertising agencies by empowering clients in four ways: (1) by capitalizing on growing consumer comfort with accessing services and conducting business transactions online; (2) by using state-of-the-art technology to create a “self-serve” process that clients completely control through Spot Runner’s website (www.spotrunner.com); (3) by focusing specifically on local TV, a market that other advertising agencies generally don’t address; and (4) by serving the local business market, which is often ignored by advertising agencies.

In addition to its experienced management team, privately held Spot Runner has the backing of a highly respected group of investors, including Index Ventures and Battery Ventures. Check the compsny site for more info.

Spot Runner offers the three fundamental services related to advertising: commercial production, media planning and media buying.

“In the past, creating a TV ad that matches the quality of Spot Runner’s ad could cost anywhere from $20,000 to $2 million. Today, we have brought the cost down to less than $500 a month,” said Waxman. “Purchasing air time has historically been expensive and confusing, but Spot Runner has simplified the process in a way that makes local TV advertising fast, easy and affordable for everyone.”

Online advertising is an affordable and effective way to reach customers—especially those who are at a critical point in the purchase-making process. It has been most effective for small- to medium-sized businesses that don’t necessarily have the “big budget” for standard print and broadcast advertising. Combined with the millions of people online daily, it offers businesses a captured audience to target.

Yet despite all the buzz, online advertising still represents a small percentage of the overall advertising market—about seven percent in 2006, according to TNS Media Intelligence. What many people don’t realize is that consumers continue to spend more time watching television—nearly 4.5 hours per day on average—than they allocate to all other media combined, including the Internet, according to TNS.

The Internet has yet to penetrate the American marketplace as pervasively as television, which reaches many more consumers on any given day than the Internet. In addition, television offers the unique capability of narrowly focusing on a target audience, both geographically and demographically.

That said, however, it doesn’t mean businesses should forsake Internet advertising. An integrated television and online advertising campaign delivers a powerful one-two marketing punch. Maximizing these two mediums will help drive new business and secure new customers. Your biz could soar.

Why TV: Getting Your Name Out
Advertising helps businesses distinguish themselves from dozens of competitors in any given day’s batch of mail or on a crowded online search-results Web page. Television advertising is one of the most powerful ways a company can raise awareness because it merges video and audio that grabs people’s attention in a way that is impossible via print, radio and the Internet. For many businesses, airing the right ad on the right channel can make all the difference in creating and perpetuating their brand.

In addition, television advertising can be quite affordable, even for smaller businesses. It can cost as little as $1,500 to run a four-week campaign on premium cable channels such as CNN, ESPN and Bravo in most U.S. markets. This is because television allows advertisers to efficiently zero in on their target demographic and target geographic market in a way that no other medium can. For example, a small business whose main customers come from within a ten-mile radius could target that specific area using local cable. Furthermore, if that business wanted to primarily target young men, they could choose to only run ads on certain channels such as ESPN and Spike. This ability to target at the hyper-local level and/or by customer demographic is still lacking on the Internet.

Television advertising essentially consists of a three-part process: commercial production, media planning and media buying. There are generally four ways to get on television: retain a traditional ad agency, retain a media-buying firm, “do it yourself” or work with a self-serve online ad agency that automates the process.

Why the Internet: Pull Customers In
When someone looks online for a car, restaurant, jeweler or any other neighborhood business, they are already in the market for that product or service and are probably close to taking the next step—calling the business, visiting the store or actually making a purchase. So for many consumers, if they can’t find your business represented online, they may never find you and will patronize someone else.

Online ads—whether they are text- or graphic-based that appear on Web sites or search result pages, or banner ads that appear at the top of a Web page—help businesses reach customers at that pivotal point in the decision-making process when they are actively extracting online information about a business category or product type.

Businesses of every size are investing in online advertising by the billions. In 2006, North American advertisers spent $9.4 billion on search engine marketing, a 62 percent increase over 2005 spending, according to a survey recently conducted by Radar Research, LLC and Intellisurvey for the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO).

One way to look at online ads is to compare them to point-of-purchase displays at the supermarket. People typically scan online search results the same way they scan supermarket shelves: they’ll be attracted to the first display or package that gets their attention. It's a good tool.

Businesses can manage their online advertising campaigns by working directly with search engines and Web sites to track the popularity of relevant keywords and search results (both paid and organic), as well as which format their ads should take and where they should appear. A firm can also be hired to do this work for them.

How to Integrate Your Campaigns
Used separately, television and Internet advertising are important mediums to help drive business. Together, they create a powerful combination that will take a marketing campaign to the next level. It's a win-win.

When developing a television and Internet campaign, create Web-conscious television ads, but try to keep online messages that will be conveyed on television simple and easy to remember. Use straightforward voice-over languagesuch as “visit us online at www.xyz.com” and make sure the Web address appears prominently in the television ad. Viewers will visit the site for more information to find the address, hours of operation and—if it’s an e-commerce site—to make a purchase. Keep the overall message of the television ad clear and simple to avoid overwhelming viewers.

When it comes to running an integrated campaign, timing is everything. Run the television and online campaigns at the same time and have them overlap whenever possible. For example, run targeted local ads on Yahoo! News simultaneous to an advertisment that’s running locally on CNN in order to hit news-minded prospects with a powerful one-two punch over a short period of time. Make sure the business’s Web site is easy to navigate and visually appealing, as well.

One real estate agent found a television/online campaign to be an extremely effective way to show off her listings and gain new buyers.

Lisa Ray, from Longmont, Colorado always knew her Web site was an important marketing tool. “Once people come tomy site, they can see my face and my listings, which gives me the recognition I need when I meet them in person.” When she learned how easy, affordable and affective it was to run a high-quality television campaign, she decided to use it to advertise a property listing. She displayed her Web address prominently onscreen throughout the ad. After running the ad on HGTV, TLC and the Food Network for just two weeks, Lisa noticed a “huge” increase in traffic to her site. In fact, in the month her ad ran, page views jumped nearly 650 percent. “I’ve never seen my Web site jump as much as it did during the running of the television ad.”

The Bottom Line
Businesses—particularly small businesses with limited brand awareness—that invest strictly in online marketing may get passed over on search pages in favor of companies with more recognizable or familiar names, while businesses that invest strictly in television will concede their spot in the world’s most trafficked marketplace.
Integrated together, television and online advertising offers a unique and effective combination that helps drive new business and secure new customers.